The Bookstore

Sunday, June 22

With summer approaching, the weather was getting hotter and hotter.

Although Tokyo had Tokyo Bay and technically sat on the coast of an inland sea, the city was so noisy that it always felt oppressive. Even the sea seemed a stifling gray.

Haiming City was nice. It occupied the same location as Beika City in Huo Lin's memories of her previous life. Although it was only forty-odd kilometers from Shinjuku, it had an entirely different atmosphere. There was Mount Mitake, and there were the Ishigami Hot Springs. Their uncle's house was there, and they had lived in that city for over a year.

But neither Hayate nor Huo Lin wanted to go back.

That was their uncle's home, not theirs.

"Once we have the money, let's buy a house of our own in Haiming City."

"Sure!"

Hayate never doubted whether Huo Lin could earn the money. If Huo Lin said she could do it, then she definitely could.

There were plenty of cinemas in Shinjuku. They didn't even need to take a bus or train; a large shopping complex near their home had a cinema inside.

"Huo Lin, you really meant it when you said you could go back to school, right?"

As expected, Hayate cared more about that than whether they could get money right away.

"Yes. If my calculations are right, I should be able to sort it out tonight. I'll use the same method to submit my writing, too."

"What method?"

"A magical disguise."

Huo Lin didn't elaborate any further.

Hayate stopped asking, too. Since it involved magic, she wouldn't understand any of it anyway. There was no point asking.

It had been so hot on the way there that Hayate had drunk quite a lot of water. Once they entered the shopping center and the air-conditioning hit her, she started needing the restroom.

They still had plenty of time before the movie.

"Sorry, Huo Lin, I need to use the restroom. Want to come with me?"

Come with her where? The restroom?

Girls did seem to have a habit of going to the restroom together, but Huo Lin hadn't picked that up yet. Had Hayate completely forgotten that she had still been male a month ago?

Then again, nine-year-olds didn't have much awareness of gender to begin with.

Perhaps, in Hayate's eyes, this meant she was now someone she could go to the restroom and take baths with.

"I don't need to go. I'll wait here."

"Okay. I'll be right back."

She said she would be right back, but there was always a long line for the women's restroom, so Huo Lin prepared herself to wait ten or twenty minutes. She looked at a shop window. It was a women's clothing store.

"Would you like to come in and have a look, little girl?"

No, no thanks. She hurriedly looked away, not because of the women's clothes, but because she wasn't used to people approaching her. Sometimes, even when she had been planning to buy something, she would hurry away as soon as a salesperson greeted her.

Next door was a bookstore. That was much better. No one would go out of their way to greet her there.

Sure enough, there were quite a few detective novels in the bookstore's bestseller section.

The authors were, of course, different from the detective novelists she had known in her previous life. Names like Yusaku Kudo and Nintaro Shinna were absent, replaced by unfamiliar names such as Edogawa Ranpo and Seicho Matsumoto. There was also Keigo Higashino, a young author who had become famous in recent years. He had made his name five years ago with Journey Under the Midnight Sun and had recently released another book.

A large advertising board in the bookstore's most prominent spot proudly announced the release of Keigo Higashino's new novel, The Devotion of Suspect X.

Apparently, detective novels could earn someone a living in this world, too.

Still, light novels made up a larger share of the books in the store. Those weren't her forte, and she hadn't read many. Demon kings, holy maidens, and the like-there wasn't much logic involved, nor did they require clever plotting. She had no particular interest in those books.

Although she was somewhat interested in detective novels, Huo Lin didn't have much time at the moment. At the very least, she had to deal with the problems right in front of her: money and her identity.

The former could wait. The remaining three million would still last her and Hayate three to five years. The latter needed to be resolved urgently.

For now, magic was the only thing she could rely on.

What she really needed were academic reference books. Not practice exam books, but genuinely useful literature. Books like that were hard to find in a bookstore.

She needed to visit the municipal library, which had a larger collection.

Actually, a university library would be best. Every university library had some unique manuscripts unavailable elsewhere, reserved for its own students to borrow.

For instance, Huo Lin remembered borrowing a book on overlapping wave-particle duality functions at the University of Tokyo, where she had once studied. That was precisely the subject she wanted to tackle through magic now.

Both light waves and sound waves could be converted in a targeted way. Simply put, she could change how other people saw her, as well as change her voice.

Not with the crude voice changers currently on the market, but by genuinely transforming one voice entirely into another natural-sounding voice.

Huo Lin remembered that the author of that book was an older alumnus of the University of Tokyo named Professor Agasa. His surname was Agasa, and his given name was Hiroshi.

She called it a book, but it was actually a handwritten manuscript, so it was certainly the only copy.

Unique manuscripts like that, research left behind for younger students, weren't uncommon in the libraries of prestigious universities. They were part of what gave those institutions their depth.

But now that she was in a different world, although the University of Tokyo still existed, that older alumnus, Professor Agasa, probably didn't. She had already given up hope of finding the manuscript.

She could only rely on her own memory.

Just then, Huo Lin felt someone tap her shoulder.

She had already noticed someone approaching. After all, she was a magical girl. A genuinely hostile target couldn't possibly get close to her for no reason. But people coming and going was perfectly normal in a bookstore, and the aisles were narrow, so she hadn't paid any attention.

Not until the person tapped her. That was a greeting, so it had to be someone she knew.

And it was. Another petite girl, a little shorter than Huo Lin, whose height was around the class average.

"Class President Sakurano."

Huo Lin and Hayate were in the same class, and this girl was their class president.

"Long time no see, Hayate! You're better now! The teacher said you can come back to school next week?"

Sakurano had mistaken her for Hayate. That was only natural. No one would think she was Huo Lin looking like this.

In that case, she might as well play along, provided Hayate didn't return midway through.

"Thank you for your concern, Class President. I've fully recovered."

Her accent automatically shifted into the same Kansai dialect Hayate used. Even someone who knew them well would have trouble noticing any difference.

Even their social circles overlapped almost completely.

"As long as you're better. That's what matters." The class president spoke earnestly, sounding rather grown-up.

But to anyone else, she merely seemed a little affected, a child trying to act like a mature, composed adult.

That was the sort of girl Kurimu Sakurano was.

She was so tiny that, despite already being in fourth grade, people occasionally mistook her for a kindergartener.

Being treated like a little child even though she was class president bothered her a great deal.

If someone was willing to have an "adult conversation" with her, it made Sakurano very happy.

"Are you here to buy a book, Class President?"

"Yes!" Sakurano held a book with The Fluffy Adventures of the Rabbit Knight written on the cover. It was clearly a light novel.

Sakurano looked rather pleased with herself. To her, "buying novels to read" was a very mature activity, something only adults did.

This was a book of plain text, not a picture book. It didn't even have many illustrations, making it a challenge for Sakurano. She felt that once she finished reading it, she would be a mature adult.

Then her gaze fell on the book "Hayate" was holding.

The Migdal Effect-Dominoes at the Atomic Level

What... what was that supposed to mean?

"Hayate, what kind of book is that?" She hadn't just picked it up at random, had she?

"Hmm? It's an unproven hypothesis about atomic nuclei gaining energy and accelerating. The chances of proving it with current technology are pretty low. At the very least, observational methods in quantum mechanics would need to become more advanced before it could be confirmed. Still, it's a decent popular science book to pass the time with."

Sakurano understood every word individually, but put together, they formed something she couldn't understand at all.

Her eyes were already starting to spin like mosquito coils.